I keep thinking about how both Hamilton & Mrs. America offer a uniquely effective artistic model for political art. Take a lesser-known figure who is the linchpin of a revolutionary structural dispute—
Could be a villain, like Phyllis, or a flawed hero, like Hamilton... then exploit that odd premise to pivot out to a broader, richer ensemble portrait of real-life figures debating their way through the crisis. If you do it well, you skirt the cheesy glowing-biopic cliches...
But also, avoid the pedantry of a preachy manifesto, while still dramatizing the grandest ideals & conflict of the period, and if you do it well, it illuminates the structural moment that made change hard to achieve, instead of just A Person.
Obviously, it depends on doing it well! I think this is a little true of Six: The Musical, too, although that doesn’t have one central character. But it makes me wonder how it would work for other movements/moments.
(Apparently, I felt the need to add the caveat “if you do it well“ to every sentence in that tweet. But you get my point. #iydiw)
